May 28, 2014

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School is winding down and summer vacation is just around the corner! Many of us will pack up the car and take to the road, stopping at sites both new and familiar. Touring our national parks in the family car is a rite of passage. Have you been to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone as a kid? While I’m all grown up, national parks are still my favorite vacation destinations and inspired my latest book Park Scientists: Gila Monsters, Geysers, and Grizzly Bears in America’s Own Backyard. So even if you can’t see the parks for yourself this summer, you can still marvel at the wonders of our nation’s greatest natural treasures.

The book follows scientists working on six different projects in national parks—collaring grizzlies and studying geysers in Yellowstone, counting cacti and tracking Gila monsters in Saguaro, and studying salamanders and synchronous fireflies in Great Smoky Mountains.

Creating this book involved lots of fantastic travel for myself and the photographer Tom Uhlman, who shot video of all our adventures and produced this wonderful book trailer.

Whether you are hitting the road, or turning the page, there is much to see, and even more to do in America’s amazing national parks!

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About Mary Kay Carson and Tom Uhlman

Mary Kay Carson and Tom Uhlman are the author and illustrator of Emi and the Rhino Scientist and The Bat Scientists. Mary Kay has written many books for children and Tom has been a freelance photographer for twenty years. They live in Cincinnati, Ohio, with their dog Ruby where they wait each summer evening for the bats to begin circling above their backyard pond. Tom also shot photographs for Eruption!, a Scientists in the Field book about volcanoes by Liz Rusch. Mary Kay and Tom's upcoming Scientists in the Field book is Park Scientists: Gila Monsters, Geysers, and Grizzly Bears in America's Own Backyard, which is about America's National Parks.